Jan. 1, 2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge. Once a controversial idea, the bridge is now a beloved icon on both sides of the Ohio River.
The Enquirer/Meg Vogel & Carol Motsinger

Buy Photo

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge spanning the Ohio River between Covington, Ky., and downtown Cincinnati on Saturday, April 21, 2018.(Photo: Sam Greene/The Enquirer)Buy Photo

If you're one of the 9,000 people whose daily commute normally takes you over the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, fear not.

Though you may have been inconvenienced after a car crashed into and shut down the bridge for repairs, the headache is almost over.

The Roebling, originally scheduled to reopen next week, is now set to reopen Friday at 6 p.m. after repair work wrapped up ahead of schedule.

The closure put people like Tim Hughes in a bind. Hughes normally rides his bike over the Roebling bridge to get to and from work at the federal courthouse downtown every day.

Now, he rides the Southbank Shuttle, but said the buses are really off schedule because the routes are different. So, "you never know when you’re going to catch the trolley."

"It made me late for work quite a bit," Hughes said. "I know it sounds like first-world problems but the struggle is real."

Hughes said he's seen the frustration in fellow passengers too. Some have gotten in yelling matches with bus drivers and tensions rise when the bus makes an unusual turn.

The Roebling bridge opened in 1866, spanning the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington.

It's a fixture in Cincinnati, said Paul Muller, executive director of the Cincinnati Preservation Association. It’s an engineering and aesthetic marvel. It’s an icon.

“Cities look for their iconic image,” Muller said. “The Eiffel Tower, the St. Louis arch. The Roebling is really a wonderful icon for Cincinnati.”

That icon was damaged on March 20 after a car ran into the bridge, causing structural damage. That prompted officials at first to close the bridge to traffic, but they later widened the closure to include pedestrians.

Buy Photo

The John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge spanning the Ohio River between Covington, Ky., and downtown Cincinnati on Saturday, April 21, 2018.(Photo: Sam Greene/The Enquirer)

After the crash, The Enquirer reviewed 10 years of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet inspection records for the bridge with the help of Jim Swanson, an associate professor of structural engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

Swanson, who specializes in bridges, said he didn’t see anything alarming in the reports. There are things that should be fixed, he said, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary for a bridge of the Roebling's age.

It’s normal wear and tear, such as peeling paint, rust and cracks on the metal grid that cars drive over.

Swanson said the bridge is in good shape, but the biggest issue is that John A. Roebling didn’t design the bridge to handle modern day traffic. He would’ve had no idea what a modern car would’ve looked like, much less the volume or weight of traffic the bridge sees today.

NEWSLETTERS

Get the News Alerts newsletter delivered to your inbox

We're sorry, but something went wrong

Be the first to be informed of important news as it happens in Greater Cincinnati.

“(John A. Roebling) would have been thinking about the vehicles of the day, which would’ve been horses and buggies,” Swanson said.

But the Roebling bridge doesn’t see nearly as many commuters as, say, the Brent Spence Bridge. And 18-wheelers aren’t allowed. The Roebling's weight capacity is posted at 11 tons and that will keep away everything except regular passenger vehicles.

The bridge also has a “redundancy” design feature, which means if one piece of the bridge fails, other pieces will pick up the load, Swanson said.

All in all, it's a safe bridge for its purpose.

“You see bridges come down once in a while, but I don’t think that’s the case here,” Swanson said. “This is a bridge designed a century and a half ago and is still in service. ... And it has a city that’s proud of it."